Rain greets the audience on entering the auditorium, relentless rain, setting the tone for this sombre piece. The Remains of the Day is based on the Booker Prize winning novel by Kazou Ishiguro. Barney Norris has adapted it for the stage and this is part of its World Premiere tour. A lot of us will remember the award winning 1993 film, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Here, the butler, Stevens, played by Stephen Boxer, is taking a rare break from his duties, embarking on a journey to visit the housekeeper he used to work with back in the 1930s (Miss Kenton, played by Niamh Cusack). Now in 1958, he is still working at Darlington Hall and is hoping to persuade her to return to help run the place. This is literally a journey down memory lane and characters from the past flit in and out. Large moveable panels serve as walls or windows and are effective in creating a drawing room, a pub or a tea room. The ensemble moves the furniture to filmic music in a beautifully choreographed manner.

Stevens has put his sense of duty above his own feelings, be they emotional or political. When he talks about the man he used to work for, Lord Darlington, who was a Nazi sympathizer, he says that he followed the wrong path. He might be talking about himself. The relationship between Stevens and Miss Kenton is not given much time in the first half to develop, and she initially comes over as quite shrill and not terribly sympathetic. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much time to develop very much and it feels like we get glimpses rather than proper views of life back in the 30s in a bustling stately home. However, time is taken when Stevens and Kenton meet up again, and we now get a proper moment to show poignancy and what might have been if he had pursued a relationship twenty years ago. Then finally there is that rain agai

The shadow of the film looms large and is a hard act to follow even 25 years on. There is so much in this piece that is unsaid which is hard to convey onstage. However, this was a good ensemble performance, the theatre was full, the applause was loud and I am sure this will be a successful tour.   ★★★☆☆   Karin André   17th April 2019